Referring to the accompanying inscription of a logarithmic spiral, which remains the same after mathematical transformations. He considered it a symbol of resurrection. CLARIFICATION: Bernoulli called the logarithmic spiral Spira mirabilis, "the marvelous spiral", and wanted one engraved on his headstone. Unfortunately, an Archimedean spiral was placed there instead (picture).

"Sacred
To The Memory Of
William Bligh, Esquire F.R.S.
Vice Admiral Of The Blue,
The Celebrated Navigator
Who First Transplanted The Breadfruit Tree
From Otahette To The West Indies,
Bravely fought The Battles Of His Country
And Died Beloved, Respected, And Lamented
On The 7th Day Of December, 1817
Aged 64"

"While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive,
No generous patron would a dinner give;
See him, when starv'd to death, and turn'd to dust,
Presented with a monumental bust.
The poet's fate is here in emblem shown,
He ask'd for bread, and he received a stone."

"Stop, Christian Passer-by! - Stop, child of God,
And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sod
A poet lies, or that which once seem'd he.
O, lift one thought in prayer for S.T.C.;
That he who many a year with toil of breath
Found death in life, may here find life in death!
Mercy for praise - to be forgiven for fame
He ask'd, and hoped, through Christ. Do thou the same!"

"This tomb holds Diophantus. Ah, what a marvel! And the tomb tells scientifically the measure of his life. God vouchsafed that he should be a boy for the sixth part of his life; when a twelfth was added, his cheeks acquired a beard; He kindled for him the light of marriage after a seventh, and in the fifth year after his marriage He granted him a son. Alas! late-begotten and miserable child, when he had reached the measure of half his father's life, the chill grave took him. After consoling his grief by this science of numbers for four years, he reached the end of his life."

In a 1925 article in Vanity Fair Fields had proposed the epitaph "Here lies W.C. Fields. I would rather be living in Philadelphia." because of his long-standing jokes about Philadelphia (he was actually born there), and the grave being one place he might actually not prefer to be. This is often repeated as "On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia." which he might have stated at other times, and sometimes is distorted into a last dig at Philadelphia: "Better here than in Philadelphia." His actual tomb at Forest Lawn in Glendale, California simply reads as above.

"The Body of B. Franklin, printer
Like the Cover of an old Book
Its Contents torn out
And stripped of its Lettering & guilding
Lies here food for worms
For, it will as he believed appear once more
In a new and more elegant edition
Corrected and improved by the Author."

Betty Grable was married to bandleader Harry James from 1943 until 1965. She is buried at Inglewood (California) Park Cemetery, between her parents. Her father, Conn Grable, is buried below her, while her mother is buried above her crypt.

"To the beautiful memory of Kenneth Grahame, husband of Elspeth and father of Alastair, who passed the River on the 6 July 1932, leaving childhood and literature through him the more blest for all time".

"So the lively force of her mind
Has broken down all barriers,
And she has passed far beyond
The limited hold of human existence;
Forever now, in mind and spirit...
She traverses the boundless universe."

Modern English equivalent:
"Here underneath this little stone
Lies Robert, Earl of Huntingdon.
No archer were as he so good
And people called him Robin Hood.
Such outlaws as he and his men
Will England never see again."

A poem in Proto-Nostratic language, probably spoken several millennia ago, which was reconstructed by Illich-Svitych.
English translation:
"Language is a ford through the river of time,
It leads us to the dwelling of those gone before;
But he cannot arrive there,
Who fears deep water".

"Author of the Declaration of American independence
of the statute of Virginia for religious freedom
and father of the University of Virginia"

Despite his being the 2nd Vice-President and 3rd President of the USA, these are not mentioned. He had said that he wanted to be remembered for what he gave to America, and not what America had given to him.

George Johnson (unknown)

"Here lies George Johnson
Hanged by mistake, 1882
He was right
We was wrong
But we strung him up
And now he's gone"

"This Grave contains all that was mortal, of a Young English Poet, who on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his heart, at the Malicious Power of his enemies, desired these words to be Engraven on his Tomb Stone: Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water."

Keats desired only the phrase "Here lies one whose name was writ in water" to be on his tombstone. However his friends, Joseph Severn and Charles Brown, added the rest.

"K-eats! if thy cherished name be "writ in water"
E-ach drop has fallen from some mourner's cheek;
A-sacred tribute; such as heroes seek,
T-hough oft in vain - for dazzling deeds of slaughter
S-leep on! Not honoured less for Epitaph so meek!"

Kovacs, Adams and their daughter, Mia Susan, are interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles. Their epitaphs are variations of the second sentence as above; Mia Susan's epitaph reads, "Daddy's girl. We all loved her too."

"Because we do not know when we will
die, we get to think of life as an
inexhaustible well. And yet everything
happens only a certain number of times,
and a very small number really.
How many more times will you
remember a certain afternoon of your
childhood, an afternoon that is so
deeply a part of your being that you
cannot conceive of your life
without it? Perhaps four, or five times
more. Perhaps not even that. How
many more times will you watch the
full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And
yet it all seems limitless.

"WESTMINSTER SCHOLAR
CENSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY
I know there is truth opposite to
falsehood that it may be
found if people will
& is worth the
seeking

Nearby the following appears: "Stop Traveller! Near this place lieth John Locke. If you ask what kind of a man he was, he answers that he lived content with his own small fortune. Bred a scholar, he made his learning subservient only to the cause of truth. This thou will learn from his writings, which will show thee everything else concerning him, with greater truth, than the suspect praises of an epitaph. His virtues, indeed, if he had any, were too little for him to propose as matter of praise to himself, or as an example to thee. Let his vices be buried together. As to an example of manners, if you seek that, you have it in the Gospels; of vices, to wish you have one nowhere; if mortality, certainly, (and may it profit thee), thou hast one here and everywhere." (translated from the original Latin).

At the time of Rob Roy's fame, the MacGregor name became banned and was never allowed to be heard or seen by law. The epitaph phrase in full, "Rob Roy MacGregor, despite them" is a last standing testament to defy that law.

"JohnFree your body and soulUnfold your powerful wingsClimb up the highest mountainsKick your feet up in the airYou may now live foreverOr return to this earthUnless you feel good where you are!
—Missed by your friends"

Mr. McCaffery is buried in Montreal. The epitaph is an acrostic poem, in that the first letters of each line spell out, "F-U-C-K Y-O-U" The motive of his "'friends'" is unknown. However, the Montreal Mirror quoted the gravestone's engraver as saying that the stone was ordered by McCaffery's "ex-wife and mistress... They said the message represented him. It was a thing between the three of them."[3]

Translation from Greek: "Truth to your own spirit" His body is buried in Paris's famous Père LaChaise cemetery in the company of many other celebrities. Next to him in the "Poet's Corner" are buried many celebrated writers, including Balzac, Molière, Oscar Wilde and Frédéric Chopin.

Matthew Mudd (unknown) from Massachusetts:

"Here lies Matthew Mudd,
Death did him no hurt;
When alive he was only Mudd,
But now he's only dirt."

O'Tool's wife sent an old and much stained leather jacket to the cleaners and they returned it, having done their best, with a note pinned to the lapel which read, "It distresses us to ect..." This amused O'tool so much he declared it would be on his "tomb stone".

"Here lie the ashes of Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967) Humorist, Writer, Critic, Defender of human and civil rights. For her epitaph, she suggested "Excuse My Dust". This memorial garden is dedicated to her noble spirit which celebrated the oneness of humankind and to the bonds of everlasting friendship between Black and Jewish people. Dedicated by The National Association of the Advancement of Colored People, October 20, 1988." (On a memorial plaque).

Parks is remembered for her involvement in the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, which began the Civil Rights movement. In her last decades she lived in Detroit, Michigan; she is buried as Oakwood Cemetery in that city.

From the Book "Penn and Teller's How to play in traffic" ISBN 1572972939 - Penn and Teller bought a cenotaph (an epitaph without a grave beneath it) and placed it in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Hollywood. They invite people touring there to use it to surprise their friends as a punchline for a card trick.

"Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie,
Glad did I live and gladly die
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be.
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."

This epitaph also prefaces the Robert Heinlein story "Requiem" and serves as the protagonist's epitaph; use for Stevenson reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 235.

"Here lies the body of Jonathan Swift,
Professor of Holy Theology, for thirty
years Dean of this cathedral church,
where savage indignation can tear his
heart no more. Go, traveller, and if you
can imitate one who with his utmost
strength protected liberty. He died in the year 1745, on the 19th of October,
aged seventy-eight"

Beren was a famous human hero during the First Age of Tolkien's fictional world Middle-earth. Beren's love was the immortal Elven maid Lúthien who chose the fate of mortality to be able to follow Beren after he died. The name "Lúthien" is inscribed underneath the name Edith Tolkien on the pair's headstone.

He sleeps. Although his fate was very strange, he lived. He died when he had no longer his angel. The thing came to pass simply, of itself, as the night comes when day is gone.

King Menethil II

Here lies King Terenas Menethil II -- Last True King of Lordaeron.
Great were his deeds -- long was his reign -- unthinkable was his death.
"May the Father lie blameless for the deeds of the son.
May the bloodied crown stay lost and forgotten."

To my true king I offer'd free from stain
Courage and faith; vain faith, and courage vain.
For him I threw lands, honours, wealth, away,
And one dear hope, that was more prized than they.
For him I languish'd in a foreign clime,
Gray-hair'd with sorrow in my manhood's prime;
Heard on Lavernia Scargill's whispering trees,
And pined by Arno for my lovelier Tees;
Beheld each night my home in fever'd sleep,
Each morning started from the dream to weep;
Till God, who saw me tried too sorely, gave
The resting-place I ask'd, an early grave.
O thou, whom chance leads to this nameless stone,
From that proud country which was once mine own,
By those white cliffs I never more must see,
By that dear language which I spake like thee,
Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear
O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here."

Beneath this stone lies the body
of a British warrior
Unknown by name or rank
brought from France to lie among
the most illustrious of the land
and buried here on Armistice Day
11 Nov: 1920, in the presence of
His Majesty King George V
His Ministers of State
the Chiefs of his Forces
and a vast concourse of the nation.

Thus are commemorated the many
multitudes who during the Great
War of 1914-1918 gave the most that
Man can give Life itself
for God
for King and country
for loved ones, home and empire
for the sacred cause of Justice and
the Freedom of the world.

They buried him among the kings because he
had done good toward God and toward
his house.

We do not know this Australian's name and we never will. We do not know his rank or battalion. We do not know where he was born, nor precisely how he died … We will never know who this Australian was … he was one of the 45,000 Australians who died on the Western Front … one of the 60,000 Australians who died on foreign soil. One of the 100,000 Australians who died in wars this century. He is all of them. And he is one of us.

Addison's translation of the epitaph on the monument of an Italian Valetudinarian. Spectator. No. 25. Boswell's Life of Johnson (April 7, 1775); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 229.

Sufficit huic tumulus, cui non suffecerit orbis.

A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient.

Epitaph on Alexander the Great; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 229.

If Paris that brief flight allow,
My humble tomb explore!
It bears: "Eternity, be thou
My refuge!" and no more.

And the voice of men shall call,
"He is fallen like us all,
Though the weapon of the Lord was in his hand:"
And thine epitaph shall be—
"He was wretched ev'n as we;"
And thy tomb may be unhonoured in the land.

Robert Buchanan, The Modern Warrior, Stanza 7; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 229.

Kind reader! take your choice to cry or laugh;
Here HAROLD lies—but where's his Epitaph?
If such you seek, try Westminster, and view
Ten thousand, just as fit for him as you.

Loe here the precious dust is layd;
Whose purely-temper'd clay was made
So fine that it the guest betray'd.
Else the soule grew so fast within,
It broke the outward shell of sinne
And so was hatch'd a cherubin.

Epitaph on a Cook (London); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 229.

Underneath this crust
Lies the mouldering dust
Of Eleanor Batchelor Shoven,
Well versed in the arts
Of pies, custards and tarts,
And the lucrative trade of the oven.
When she lived long enough,
She made her last puff,
A puff by her husband much praised,
And now she doth lie
And make a dirt pie,
In hopes that her crust may be raised.

Epitaph on a Cook (Yorkshire); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 229.

Epitaph on Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon. (1419). In Cleveland's Geneal. Hist. of the Family of Courtenay, p. 142. Said to be on a tomb in Padua. Attributed to Carlyle; not found. Like inscriptions are found on many old tombstones. The oldest is probably the one in the choir of St. Peter's Church at St. Albans; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 229-230.

Praised, wept,
And honoured, by the muse he loved.

Lines from the epitaph of James Craggs in Westminster Abbey; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 230.

And when I lie in the green kirkyard,
With the mould upon my breast,
Say not that she did well—or ill,
"Only, She did her best."

Dinah Craik (Miss Mulock). Given in her obituary notice in the Athenæum (Oct. 22, 1887); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 230.

His form was of the manliest beauty,
His heart was kind and soft,
Faithful, below, he did his duty;
But now he's gone aloft.

Charles Dibdin, Tom Bowling. Written on the death of his brother. Inscribed on Charles Dibdin's gravestone, in the cemetery of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, Camden Town; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 230.

For though his body's under hatches,
His soul has gone aloft.

Charles Dibdin, Tom Bowling. Written on the death of his brother; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 230.

This comes of altering fundamental laws and overpersuading by his landlord to take physic (of which he died) for the benefit of the doctor—Stavo bene (was written on his monument) ma per star meglio, sto qui.

"Let there be no inscription upon my tomb. Let no man write my epitaph. No man can write my epitaph. I am here ready to die. I am not allowed to vindicate my character; and when I am prevented from vindicating myself, let no man dare calumniate me. Let my character and motives repose in obscurity and peace, till other times and other men can do them justice."

Robert Emmet, speech on his trial and conviction for high treason (September, 1803); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 230.

Nemo me lacrumis decoret neque funera fletu faxit.

Let no one pay me honor with tears, nor make for me a weeping funeral.

The body of Benjamin Franklin, Printer, (Like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out and stript of its lettering and gilding), Lies here, food for worms; But the work shall not be lost, for it will (as he believed) appear once more in a new and more elegant edition, revised and corrected by the author.

Benjamin Franklin, Epitaph on Himself. Written in 1728. Revised by himself from an earlier one.

John Davis, in Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America, gives similar epitaph in Latin, said to have been written by "An Eton scholar"; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 230.

Quand je serai la, je serai sans souci.

When I shall be there, I shall be without care.

Frederick the Great. His inscription written at the foot of the statue of Flora at Sans Souci, where he wished to be buried. His body lies in the church at Potsdam; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 230.

Here lies Fred,
Who was alive and is dead.
Had it been his father,
I had much rather.
Had it been his brother,
Still better than another.
Had it been his sister,
No one would have missed her.
Had it been the whole generation,
Still better for the nation.
But since 'tis only Fred,
Who was alive, and is dead,
There's no more to be said.

Epitaph to Frederick, Prince of Wales (Father of George III), as given by Thackeray—Four Georges. Probably version of a French epigram "Colas est morte de maladie," found in Les Epigrammes de Jean Ogier Gombauld. (1658). Several early versions of same. See Notes and Queries. May 3, 1902, p. 345; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 230.

Anthony Hope Hawkins, Inscribed on the bronze tablet placed in memory of Sir William Gilbert on the Victoria Embankment (Aug. 31, 1915); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 231. Bronze is by Sir George Frampton.

Farewell, vain world, I've had enough of thee,
And Valies't not what thou Can'st say of me;
Thy Smiles I count not, nor thy frowns I fear,
My days are past, my head lies quiet here.
What faults you saw in me take Care to shun,
Look but at home, enough is to be done.

Epitaph over William Harvey in Greasley Churchyard, England (1756); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 231. A travesty of the same is over the tomb of Phillis Robinson, in that churchyard (1866). See Alfred Stapleton, The Churchyard Scribe, p. 95.

Man's life is like unto a winter's day,
Some break their fast and so depart away,
Others stay dinner then depart full fed;
The longest age but sups and goes to bed.
Oh, reader, then behold and see,
As we are now so must you be.

Here she lies a pretty bud,
Lately made of flesh and blood;
Who, as soone fell fast asleep,
As her little eyes did peep.
Give her strewings, but not stir
The earth that lightly covers her.

Robert Herrick, Upon a Child that Dyed; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 231.

Under the shadow of a leafy bough
That leaned toward a singing rivulet,
One pure white stone, whereon, like crown on brow,
The image of the vanished star was set;
And this was graven on the pure white stone
In golden letters—"WHILE SHE LIVED SHE SHONE."

Attributed to Ben Jonson, Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 231-232. Claimed for Sir Thomas Browne by Sir Egerton Brydges. It is in Lansdowne Manuscript No. 777, in British Museum. Poems by Browne, Volume II, p. 342. Ed. by W. C. Hazlitt for the Roxburghe Library.

Plautus has prepared himself for a life beyond the grave; the comic stage deserted weeps; laughter also and jest and joke; and poetic and prosaic will bewail his loss together.

Epitaph of Plautus, by himself; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 232.

Under this marble, or under this sill,
Or under this turf, or e'en what they will,
Whatever an heir, or a friend in his stead,
Or any good creature shall lay o'er my head,
Lies one who ne'er car'd, and still cares not a pin
What they said or may say of the mortal within;
But who, living and dying, serene, still and free,
Trusts in God that as well as he was he shall be.

Kneller, by Heaven and not a master taught
Whose art was nature, and whose pictures thought,
* * * * * *
Living great Nature fear'd he might outvie
Her works; and dying, fears herself may die.

Alexander Pope, Inscription on the monument of Sir Geofrey Kneller in Westminster Abbey; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 232. Imitated from the epitaph on Raphael, in the Pantheon at Rome.

To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art! draw near!
Here lies the friend most lov'd, the son most dear;
Who ne'er knew joy but friendship might divide,
Or gave his father grief but when he died.

Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear;
Who broke no promise, served no private end,
Who gained no title, and who lost no friend,
Ennobled by himself, by all approved,
And praised, unenvied, by the muse he loved.

Mine haven's found; Fortune and Hope, adieu.
Mock others now, for I have done with you.

Inscription on the tomb of Francesco Pucci in the church of St. Onuphrius, (St. Onofrio), Rome; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 233. Translation by Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Part II, Section III. Memb. 6. Quoted by him as a saying of Prudentius. Attributed to Janus Pannonius. See Jani Panuonii, Onofrio, Part II. Folio 70. Found in Laurentius Schradern's Monumenta Italiæ, Folio Helmæstadii, p. 164. Attributed to Cardinal, La Marck in foot-note to Le Sage's Gil Blas.

Version of the Greek epigram in the Anthologia; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 233. Translation by Merivale. Latin by Thomas More, in the Progymnasmata prefixed to first ed. of More's Epigrams. (1520).

Version of the Greek epigram by Luigi Alamanni; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 233.

I came at morn—'twas spring, I smiled,
The fields with green were clad;
I walked abroad at noon,—and lo!
'Twas summer,—I was glad;
I sate me down; 'twas autumn eve,
And I with sadness wept;
I laid me down at night, and then
'Twas winter,—and I slept.

Mary Pyper, Epitaph, A Life. Same on a tombstone in Massachusetts. See Newhaven Magazine (Dec., 1863); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 233.

The world's a book, writ by th' eternal Art
Of the great Maker; printed in man's heart;
'Tis falsely printed though divinely penn'd,
And all the Errata will appear at th' end.

The World's a Printing-House, our words, our thoughts,
Our deeds, are characters of several sizes.
Each Soul is a Compos'tor, of whose faults
The Levites are Correctors; Heaven Revises.
Death is the common Press, from whence being driven,
We're gather'd, Sheet by Sheet, and bound for Heaven.

On Tomb of John Killungworth (1412), in Pitson Church, Bucks, England; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 233.

Lo, all that ever I spent, that sometime had I;
All that I gave in good intent, that now have I;
That I never gave, nor lent, that now aby I;
That I kept till I went, that lost I.

Translation of the Latin on the brasses of a priest at St. Albans, and on a brass as late as 1584 at St. Olave's, Hart Street, London; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 233.

It that I gife, I haif,
It that I len, I craif,
It that I spend, is myue,
It that I leif, I tyne.

Howe: Howe: who is heare:
I, Robin of Doncaster, and Margaret my feare.
That I spent, that I had;
That I gave, that I have;
That I left, that I lost.

Epitaph of Robert Byrkes, in Doncaster Church. Richard Gough, Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 234.

The earthe goeth on the earthe
Glisteringe like gold;
The earthe goeth to the earthe
Sooner than it wold;
The earthe builds on the earthe
Castles and Towers;
The earthe says to the earthe
All shall be ours.

Epitaph in T. F. Ravenshaw's Antiente Epitaphes (1878), p. 158. Also in The Scotch Haggis. Edinburgh, 1822. For variation of same see Montgomery, Christian Poets, p. 58. 3rd ed. Note states it is by William Billyng, Five Wounds of Christ. From an old Manuscript in the possession of William Bateman, of Manchester. The epitaph to Archbishop of Canterbury, time of Edward III, is the same. See Weaver's Funeral Monuments (1631). Facsimile discovered in the chapel of the Guild of the Holy Cross, at Stratford. See Fisher's Illustrations of the Paintings, etc. (1802). Ed. by J. G. Nichols. Epitaph and citations reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 234.

Earth walks on Earth,
Glittering in gold;
Earth goes to Earth,
Sooner than it wold;
Earth builds on Earth,
Palaces and towers;
Earth says to Earth,
Soon, all shall be ours.

I, whom Apollo sometime visited,
Or feigned to visit, now, my day being done,
Do slumber wholly, nor shall know at all
The weariness of changes; nor perceive
Immeasurable sands of centuries
Drink up the blanching ink, or the loud sound
Of generations beat the music down.

Now when the number of my years
Is all fulfilled and I
From sedentary life
Shall rouse me up to die,
Bury me low and let me lie
Under the wide and starry sky.
Joying to live, I joyed to die,
Bury me low and let me lie.

Robert Louis Stevenson, poem written in 1879; probably original of his Requiem; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 235.

To the down Bow of Death
His Forte gave way,
All the Graces in sorrow were drown'd;
Hallelujah Cresendo
Shall be his glad lay
When Da'Capo the Trumpet shall sound.

Ne'er to these chambers where the mighty rest,
Since their foundation came a nobler guest;
Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed
A fairer spirit or more welcome shade.

Thomas Tickell, Ode on the Death of Addison. Later placed on Addison's tomb in Henry the VII Chapel, Westminster; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 235.

Then haste, kind Death, in pity to my age,
And clap the Finis to my life's last page.
May Heaven's great Author my foul proof revise,
Cancel the page in which my error lies,
And raise my form above the etherial skies.
* * * * * * * *
The stubborn pressman's form I now may scoff;
Revised, corrected, finally worked off!

Mantua bore me; the people of Calabria carried me off; Parthenope (Naples) holds me now. I have sung of pastures, of fields, of chieftains.

Virgil's Epitaph; said to be by himself; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 235.

Here in this place sleeps one whom love
Caused, through great cruelty to fall.
A little scholar, poor enough,
Whom François Villon men did call.
No scrap of land or garden small
He owned. He gave his goods away,
Table and trestles, baskets—all;
For God's sake say for him this Lay.

François Villon, His own Epitaph; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 235.

He directed the stone over his grave to be thus inscribed:Hie jacet hujus Sententiæ primus Author:
Disputandi pruritus ecclesiarum scabies.
Nomen alias quære.
Here lies the first author of this sentence; "The itch of disputation will prove the scab of the Church." Inquire his name elsewhere.

Isaak Walton, Life of Wotton; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 235.

The poet's fate is here in emblem shown,
He asked for bread, and he received a stone.

Here lies, in a "horizontal" position
The "outside" case of
Peter Pendulum, watch-maker.
He departed this life "wound up"
In hopes of being "taken in hand" by his Maker,
And of being thoroughly "cleaned, repaired" and "set a-going"
In the world to come.

He first deceas'd; she for a little tri'd
To live without him, lik'd it not, and died.

Sir Henry Wotton, Upon the Death of Sir Albertus Morton's Wife; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 235.

Si monumentum requiris circumspice.

If you would see his monument look around.

Inscription on the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren in St. Paul's, London. Written by his son. Translation by Rogers, Italy, Florence; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 235.